Cryptikon Far Freedom Part 2

information and all the forces of reality. She picked a strong current and rode it, then another and another, changing course constantly and almost instantly. The Eclipse followed the Freedom, but slowly the distance between ships widened. With each small course change came a spurt of extra velocity, and each time the Eclipse turned after them it could not duplicate the precision of the Freedom's course and the gap grew larger.

  An hour passed. The sensor target of the flagship dwindled beyond detection. Zakiya got up from the helm, leaving the ship running straight. "Get the envelope tuned, Iggy," she ordered. "I'm tired."

  "What do you call that?" Horss asked. "What did you do to outrun my old ship? It was supposed to be the fastest ship in the Navy!"

  "That was sailing," she replied. "We were luffing badly. I trimmed the sails and found winds and currents to speed us up. Interstellar field gradients. When you have to make speed to make money, as I did long ago, you learn to find the path of least resistance between stars. I'm surprised such piloting methods have been disused by the Navy. I think we used them a lot in Deep Space Fleet, and we didn't have the level of precision we have now."

  "Do we keep this heading?" Horss asked.

  "We have a stop to make," Zakiya said. "Sector 53509. I'll leave it to you to decide how to get there ahead of the Eclipse."

  "When do we need to be there?"

  "As soon as possible, Jon."

  "May I ask what this stop represents?"

  "Many of our crew and passengers will want to leave the ship. It will be their only chance to do so. We'll also pick up two more crew members there."

  "How is Captain Direk?" Horss asked.

  "He's injured. Seriously injured! I left him at the hospital."

  "That's his blood I smell? What happened to him?"

  Before Fidelity could answer, they both received a message from Mai.

  2-11 He's Dead and I Loved Him

  "He passed away. We couldn't save him." Mai dropped into a chair in Aylis Mnro's office, exhausted and despondent.

  "You put him in stasis?" Zakiya asked.

  "Yes, but there is no hope of revival."

  Mai's words staggered Zakiya. Her voice thickened with grief. "How could it be that bad?"

  Sammy buried his face against her stomach. He didn't understand Mai's words, spoken in Standard, but he knew the meaning by her expression and tone of voice. Zakiya stroked his dark straight hair. She was shocked into numbness, her mind sent into a loop of thoughts she couldn't break for several moments: Direk is dead! What will we do without him? What will happen to Aylis? Direk is dead! What will we do without him? What will happen to Aylis? Direk is dead!

  "We shouldn't have even had a chance to save him," Mai strained to speak. "I didn't know why he was still alive! And then there were so many anomalies."

  "Anomalies?" Zakiya queried.

  "He wasn't human!"

  "Not human?"

  "He wasn't fully biological! We were unprepared! Something vital was destroyed by an internal explosion. We bypassed his heart and a lung and that stabilized him for a few moments but then he started dissolving!"

  "Then... it wasn't the real Direk!" Zakiya was desperate to find some hope.

  "Aylis says he was a copy. I never believed there was a copy of Aylis, until I saw this copy of Direk! And I still cried when he died!" Mai rubbed her damp eyes.

  Zakiya was unable to decide how to feel. She could feel relieved, but that would deny the value of the sacrifice. He wasn't the real Direk but he was a real person. "Copy?" she asked. "A clone?"

  "I don't think so. Aylis was too upset to explain the difference, but except for the mechanical augmentation I don't think there was much difference. He didn't want to die! He was fighting to live! Then he knew he would lose the fight. He was so... sad!"

  Aylis walked unsteadily into her office wiping her face with a small towel. Her eyes were red and puffy. She held the towel to her nose for several moments, then sat down with it and looked down at the floor. She leaned back and covered her face with the towel. She moved the towel under her nose again and closed her eyes.

  "He wasn't your real son," Zakiya stated, wanting Aylis to agree with her but unsure she should say anything at all to Aylis. Her words seemed to startle Aylis, as if she had been unaware that anyone else was in her hospital office.

  "When you brought him to me with those wounds in him," Aylis said emotionally, "he was my son! When he began to slip away from us on the operating table, he was my son! And then, when I finally understood what he was... He was conscious, and he saw that I knew... He said, 'I love you!'" Her voice broke and she choked on a sob. "I loved him as my real son at that moment. I hope he saw that. I kissed him and held him, until he... died. He was very much my son, even being what he was - especially being what he was! This is very hard for me! Impossible for me!"

  /

  Jamie stopped when the door opened upon the scene in Doctor Mnro's office. Something was very wrong! "Captain Direk?" she queried. When Demba turned her way, when Demba shook her head, when Demba wiped tears from her face... Jamie felt like she had been punched in the gut! How could that mean what it seemed to mean? "No!" Jamie shouted, shocking herself with the force of her denial.

  Doctor Mnro's eyes widened at her explosion of denial. The grief Jamie saw in those eyes devastated her. Mnro started to say something but didn't, perhaps arrested by the pain that had poured across Jamie's face.

  "But..." Jamie tried to speak. Words failed her. People lived long lives these days but she had seen final death many times. She had even welcomed it at times. This was somehow different, worse. "But you can save anyone! I just don't understand! He was your son!"

  "I had to let him die." Mnro struggled to speak. "I could not save him."

  "I'm so very sorry, ma'am! I didn't mean... I shouldn't have spoken to you that way! I shouldn't be here! I'm sorry!"

  "You came," Mnro hurried to say, as Jamie turned to leave. "Don't go away! Tell me why you came."

  "He visited me last night." Jamie was surprised at her own difficulty to speak, as though Mnro's grief had infected her. "He came to tell me I was promoted, and to ask me what happened to you."

  "You told him?"

  "No, ma'am!" She stopped. She had so many questions she needed to ask and it was the wrong time. Aylis Mnro had lost her son, and she had been raped. Jamie's questions could wait.

  "It must have been a very brief visit," Mnro commented, obviously hoping Jamie would say more.

  The woman gave Jamie much more attention than she deserved, especially at this tragic moment in her life. Doctor Mnro was obviously making a supreme effort to continue talking to her, making Jamie feel obliged to continue the conversation. And Jamie's mother was here, doubling the emotional confusion! Her mother, her mother, her mother!

  "It was mysterious." Jamie shook her head, her thoughts in turmoil. She had led Marines in combat and buried comrades who died the real death. She wasn't afraid of anything but she couldn't find her courage now. There would be a time in the future when it would not burden a grieving Mnro, and when that grief would not hurt Jamie as much as it seemed to. She shook her head, looking down at the floor, unable to find coherent words.

  "You were six years old," Aylis Mnro began. Jamie looked up at Mnro, saw her take a deep breath, stare into her face, and take another breath. Jamie looked at Admiral Demba, her mother, who was staring at Mnro with deep concern. "Your mother had to go away," Mnro said. "I had taken you from her and I wanted to keep you young, so she wouldn't lose your childhood when she returned for you. I wanted to put you in stasis. You cried and cried for your mother! I couldn't do it! I made Direk do it. Nor could he put you in stasis. He took you to your father's parents and they raised you."

  Jamie tried to understand what Doctor Mnro told her. She couldn't absorb it so suddenly, even though she already knew Demba was her mother. Why didn't they explain everything at the beginning? Captain Direk knew her, and cared for her so much that he avenged her rape! W
hy didn't she remember him? Why were they so cruel to the child she once was? Did her mother abandon her? She looked at Demba and saw infinite sadness. Demba: her mother! It would be obscene to open herself to the woman at a moment such as this. She didn't know if she could do it, or if she even wanted to.

  Admiral Demba kept her worried gaze on Jamie as she held Sammy against her. Sammy tried to pull away in Jamie's direction, drawing the admiral with him. Jamie knelt down before Sammy, perhaps to postpone the ultimate confrontation of her life. She observed the marks on his neck in the shape of fingers. He was injured, strangled! She heard two women emit gasps, as if they may have just noticed the injury to Sammy. She embraced the child without thinking, just feeling.

  "She's your mother," Sammy said softly close to her ear, and he caused her to make a decision.

  Jamie stood up and faced her mother. She saw more tears in the woman's dark eyes.

  "Mother," Jamie said.

  "Daughter," Admiral Demba quietly replied.

  How long was Jamie without hope of ever finding her real parents? How many times did she petition the Mnro Clinics for the identity of her parents? How many times did she dream about the moment that had now arrived? Yet, she hadn't come here to greet her mother. She came to ask about Captain Direk. As much as her real mother meant to her, she could find little happiness while knowing Direk had died.

  "Jamie," Demba said, and reached toward her.

  Jamie retreated a step from her mother. Her mother! She had